I **always** forget where I put my play button graphic. I’m creating this post so YOU and I can bookmark it and call it a day! It’s a “3D” PNG image with a transparent background of the red YouTube “play” button

Last December, Facebook began rolling out new CTA (Call To Action) buttons for Pages. (See image above.)

This was a welcome addition to Pages functionality because it is an easy way for anybody to create an “action” button in one of the most prominent places on your Page. (You could create a tab application but most people don’t know how to do that.)

If you are an administrator of a Page and the functionality has been “rolled-out” to you, there will be a new button to the left of the “Like” button on your Cover Photo that says “Create Call-to-Action.” Clicking on this button gives you seven different CTA options:Book Now, Contact Us, Use App, Play Game, Shop Now, Sign Up, Watch Video.

How to use the new Call-to-Action buttons?

Book Now – If your business has scheduling software (hotels, appointments, consultations, etc.) on your website, this CTA button can be used to send people directly to the booking page.

Contact Us – This one is pretty straight forward. You could either send them directly to your Contact page, OR if you have Live Chat you could send them to an actual person.

Use App – If your business has created a Facebook application, use this CTA. Most businesses I work with haven’t done this so I don’t expect it to be used much.

Play Game – If your business has created a game, use this to send people to the game.

Shop Now – If your business sells any kind merchandise, you can use this button to send Facebook users directly to your online store.

Sign Up – This is probably my favorite. Use this CTA to send Facebook users directly to a “lead capture” page on your website. Newsletters, whitepapers, discount coupons, etc.

Watch Video – This is probably my second favorite. If you have a promotional video, this CTA button is going to drive more people to view it.

Those are just a few ideas for a Facebook CTA button. You could get creative and use the “Sign Up” button to increase your Twitter followers, or you could use the “Book Now” for a “presell” page for an upcoming product you are launching, or maybe use the “Contact Us” to send people to your Careers page. Be creative. Right now there seems to be no restrictions on what URL link you can give the button.

“Over the course of a three-week test, the Sign Up call-to-action button delivered a 2.5x higher conversion rate versus other comparable social placements aimed to drive new user acquisition.” — Brian Kim, Director of Acquisition, Dollar Shave Club

Call-to-Action Buttons on Mobile Devices

Three things to note about the new CTA buttons in regards to mobile devices:

The “button” is not currently in a very prominent location on your mobile FB Page. I’m not sure how FB could “fix” this but maybe it could have a highlighted background or at least be above the “Likes” count. See what I mean…?

You either have OR have not optimized your website for mobile visitors. Either way, Facebook gives you flexibility with your marketing. Let’s say your website ISN’T optimized for mobile devices…you could easily create a single “lead capture” mobile page and direct your Facebook sign-ups to it. (See example below, or more mobile landing page options here.) Or, even if your site IS optimized for mobile, maybe you have a special offer just for mobile visitors coming from Facebook. The option is there.

If your business has a mobile application, Facebook allows you to link directly to the application. In fact, they allow you to link directly to either an iOS (Apple) or Android (everyone else) app. If you’re curious how to do it, you can click here.

BONUS TIP

Particularly in the beginning when people haven’t yet been “trained” to look for the new navigation, just adding a Facebook Call-to-Action button to your Page might not result in additional clicks.For this, I would recommend you add a “highlight” to your Cover Photo that draws attention to it. Perhaps change the background directly behind the button OR add a bright red arrow.

What do you think?Have you implemented this button yet?How are you using it?

Most people are now aware that YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine on the planet. And I can tell you from personal experience, I have started to skip Google search and go directly to YouTube when I know I want a video answer to my question. I’ve also begun to replace my television watching with YouTube video series. So especially in the last year, I have been watching a lot of videos and have noticed a few “tricks” that I would like to share.

The first one is called a “video end card.” It’s added at the end of your video for the purpose of promoting either your brand (in general) or promoting other videos you have made. If you have taken the trouble to produce a promotional video for your business, you should spend a little extra time creating a trailer. It makes your video look more “professional.” More importantly, it helps your viewers easily connect with you via direct links to additional content.

The basic idea is you create a branded “page” at the end of your video and using YouTube annotations, create a link “overlay” to additional content. I realize that’s a weird way to explain it so I’ve collected some examples to give you ideas. These are screen captures of videos so remember that anything which looks “clickable” … was. Here they are…from “simplest” to most complex.

It’s a bit old now (Google Authorship has been killed) but this explains why it is so hard to do SEO ranking for your website. I always have trouble explaining this to clients because it’s so complicated. But with these visuals, I think it’s easier explain how important SEO ranking is. Thoughts?

There is this crazy thing that has been happening for awhile. Instead of typing a comment on Facebook and then adding a smiley face, people leave a “comment pic.” A photo with some funny text over-layed. You see it more and more but I can’t think of any place you see it more than the Facebook comments of #georgehtakei

I’ve been collecting some examples and would like to share them with you. Out of context, some of these might not seem funny. So what you have to do is, image each of these as a comment to something someone has posted on FB.

Before moving to another country, I decided to back everything I owned up to Dropbox. By “everything I owned” I mean everything I could digitize and put on a computer. That included books, music, DVDs (shh), photos, etc.

I spent about a year digitizing everything I owned. Then, I simply spent 3-4 days uploading all of that content from my hard drive to Dropbox. Now, mind you, I paid DEARLY for that cloud space! $49 per month for 500 gigs of space. At one time…about 6-9 months ago, that price was ok. But then, Google dropped the prices of their Drive cloud space. Now I can get 1 terabyte of Google Drive space for $9.99!

So, I’ve moved almost 500 gigs of data from Dropbox to Google Drive. It took me a long time to figure out how to do it so I thought I’d document it in case others might find my solution useful.

What I found is called CloudHQ.net. Basically, it’s a service that allows you to copy (or backup) data from one cloud service to another. For me, I wanted to transfer my Dropbox files to Google Drive…all across the cloud. (The Dropbox files were not on my computer so this is not easy!)

CloudHQ.net allowed me to copy all the files from one cloud service to another. It was amazingly easy. (Don’t believe me? Ask questions in the comments below!) I just clicked a few buttons!

I struggled for MONTHS trying to find something that would do what CloudHQ does! And, I pay them $9.99/mth and $9.99 to Google Drive (for 1 terabyte)…so that’s $20/mth for 2x the space at Dropbox, which charged me $50/mth. Basically, I saved $30/mth for twice the cloud space.

I <3 CloudHQ.net!

“Old timer” digital nomads like me have years and years of files to backup and no little laptop hard drive is going to be large enough to hold everything. For $9.99 (7,5€) per month, I get my own 1 terabyte hard drive in the sky.

If you are going to spend a fortune on a window display that hundreds of people stop to take a photo of, put your damn store name on the window so people know who you are! I understand the French are more “subtle” than Americans but I’m sure they could find a classy way to get their store name into the photo. #missedopportunity

Many individuals nowadays prefer to have a home-based job rather than working eight hours each day in the office. Some people are also into franchising; this may sound good but if you want to become a successful entrepreneur, you donít have to focus entirely on franchising. You should consider other business ideas that you can venture into.

Research can be carried out with ease these days, thanks to the power of the internet. If you conduct your search online, you can find other business ideas that you can use as an entrepreneur. Beginners will benefit a lot from the information they can find online about business ideas.

Because of the many business ideas you can find online, you will often find it hard to choose the ones you like. Itís easy to choose if you use your instincts. For instance, if one business idea feels right, take note of it but if you have second thoughts about another idea, disregard it.

As an entrepreneur, you should investigate further by gathering as much information as possible about the business ideas. True enough, franchise is absolutely a great idea. By choosing this business alternative, you can be the boss of your own business and you can earn unlimited income.

However, according to experts, franchise and other internet businesses promise the same business opportunities. It will all differ on how you handle the business.

Not all individuals who desire to own a business can achieve this goal. You see, being an entrepreneur is hard. There are a lot of factors to consider before you decide to become an entrepreneur. Even if you have the capital to finance the business undertaking, you canít be sure that it can give you high profits in the future especially if you donít know how to handle certain business situations.

First and foremost, you must be able to work alone. Once youíre an entrepreneur, youíre already self-employed. It would also be best if you can have the support of your loved ones.

Here is a very good example. As mentioned earlier, further investigation is needed to evaluate the business ideas that you have in your hands. Starting a business from scratch requires a lot of work. Suppose the business that youíre about to put up is also available in franchise, which business idea will you choose?

For the smart entrepreneurs, they will already go for franchising because it requires less work. An established business undertaking is less expensive and less risky. But before you make a final decision, you must be able to weigh all the advantages as well as disadvantages. This is an essential part of choosing the best business idea.

Once youíve chosen the right business idea, you can spring it into action. Soon enough, you will gain the financial benefits that youíre dreaming of. Whether you choose to start your own business or go for franchising, the most important thing is to develop goodwill. All the actions of the entrepreneur must be focused in attaining all the objectives of the business.

If you want to become an entrepreneur, you must research all the business ideas that you can get online. The internet can help you a lot. Also, donít forget to develop the needed traits and skills as an entrepreneur.

You can get many resources through the internet or you can talk to an established entrepreneur so that you will have an idea on what youíre about to undertake.